Allen Korick
Personality Paranoid, jumpy, and endlessly suspicious of others, Allen is a tormented and cynical man who has long since grown accustomed to looking out for himself and no-one else. In public he is quiet and unassuming, fearing attention of any kind and preferring to leave his deeper thoughts unspoken, though the moment he feels personally threatened by someone else's behaviour, he will go to great lengths in order to either correct it or remove himself from the situation before his own well-being is put at risk. Those who do not at least respect his often fearful and obsessively cautious ways are unlikely to remain in his good graces for long, though it can be difficult to tell who he considers a friend or an ally regardless, as he is an unrepentant liar who seems to show only the bare minimum of trust to most anyone he knows. He has a stubborn tendency to assume the worst about others, viewing all proof to the contrary with heavy skepticism at the best of times. Background Even before his life took a turn for the worse, Allen J. Korick could not be considered a very lucky man. Born in Glasgow to a mother who died of cancer when he was only six years old and a father who never quite learned to cope with the loss of his wife or the burdens of being a single parent, he suffered through a difficult and lonely childhood surrounded by peers who seemed to have everything in abundance except sympathy for him and his struggling family. Allen learned to support his grieving father from an early age, taking whatever shortcuts he could to make ends meet, and gaining himself a reputation for being untrustworthy in the process that stuck with him throughout much of his young life. As he grew older, he had to work even harder to keep the favour of his skeptical employers, and his dreams of pursuing a career as an actor eventually fell by the wayside in favour of a stable but unfulfilling office job that, to him, felt like the very embodiment of his own bleak and inescapable future. He wanted a way out - or rather, he thought he was owed one. Although Allen was a clever man, he was not wise. In order to feel successful and escape the apathy that suffused his everyday life, he turned to gambling under the belief that his luck would eventually change and his lifetime of misfortune would finally be repaid with some semblance of freedom, preferably in the form of money that he could use to leave home and pursue his ambitions elsewhere. What he received instead was an unsustainable habit and a new avenue of debt that only grew worse with each passing week. When the bills became too much to pay, he stole from his workplace to make up the difference and took out loans to feed his addiction further, still clinging to the vain hope that he could escape the consequences and start anew if he simply played things smart and persisted through his latest unlucky streak. As could be expected, he was broken of that delusion both swiftly and mercilessly before very long. The first thing that Allen lost was his career. Arrested under charges of minor fraud - his first and only lucky break considering how many of his illicit activities remained undiscovered at the time - he was fined for what little wealth he still had to his name and left the courthouse disgraced, penniless, and unemployed. His creditors from the casino, sensing an opportunity in his desperation, came visiting the very morning after to present him with an ultimatum: if he were interested, they were willing to offer him work to pay off his debts now that he found himself without a source of income, provided he could do as he was told and asked no questions. On the other hand, if he would rather refuse, they would regrettably have little choice but to collect their due in other ways; a thinly veiled threat which he had no great interest in exploring the specifics of. He accepted without a show of resistance, expecting the worst but seeing no reasonable alternative under his circumstances. Contrary to his greatest fears, Allen's new employers seemed content to expose him to risk rather than outright danger. He was armed with a new identity and sent around the world to work for museums, shipping companies, galleries and the like, abusing his position to feed information back to the criminals who had placed him there without being made aware of their true intentions. On other occasions, he would be asked to cause shipments and other valuables to simply go "missing", even working with teams of more trusted men to transport them discreetly away from the institutions where they belonged while covering his tracks with cheap replicas and staged accidents. His previously undiscovered talent for deflecting suspicion served him well in maintaining his cover, while his fear of discovery kept him prepared for the eventuality that it would be broken, enabling him to stay active, alive, and free for much longer than anyone truly expected of him. It took some time and more than a few successful operations, but he slowly turned impressions of himself around from expendable to reliable, becoming an asset that his employers were forced to admit would be wasted on just any low-impact theft. They began to give him higher-profile work, and with it, more support, information, and trust than he had enjoyed before; none of which he abused, having become quite comfortable in his new life as a smuggler. Over the course of several years, Allen ingratiated himself with the criminal empire that held his leash, and while he was never comfortable or friendly around its members, he nonetheless came to be accepted as one of them. He eventually paid off his debts in full, and staying in the business by choice, learned through the chatter of his contacts that he was working for a figure known as the Lady of Milan - a generous woman, from his perspective, though he knew better than to seem curious about her enterprises or her interest in the goods he was moving on her behalf. It was safer and more useful to appear capable and ambitious, and so, when plans were drawn for a certain operation to move a shipment of important merchandise from the Massachusetts coast to the mainland of the United Kingdoms, his name quickly found its way onto the roster of those who would be traveling with the crates to slip them past customs undetected. By any reckoning, it was a straightforward job that only demanded close attention due to the value of the items being moved; another easy success for Allen that he could use to pave the road forward for his career, and maybe even earn some favour from the higher-ups. Things began about as well as could be expected, with a large shipment of crates arriving on time to the dockside warehouse where Allen and his team were waiting. They had all the documentation they needed to get themselves through to international waters, at which point most of the trip overseas was spent in idle conversation, with the crew tearing off and replacing the labels on their cargo in anticipation for their arrival in Saint-Nazaire. Once they had pulled into port, a bit of fast-talk, a few bribes, and a cursory inspection which revealed nothing objectionable carried the smugglers through to a warehouse for them to unload their goods. It was all going smoothly until, whether due to careless placement or his own preoccupied state of mind, Allen accidentally dislodged one of the boxes from a shelf while pushing his own into place, sending it crashing to the floor and breaking it open on one side. He wasted no time in rushing over to assess the damage, finding to his relief that it was fairly minimal - a small onyx statuette had been dislodged by the fall, tearing through the packaging that had been protecting it. As he took hold of the thing to check on it, however, a harsh, painful chill ran through his body, and he lost consciousness with little more than a strangled croak. Allen returned to his senses almost an hour later to find himself seated up against one of the warehouse walls, feeling weak and disoriented but otherwise unhurt. His coworkers had discovered him lying on the floor next to a broken box and assumed that he had blacked out and dropped it, so they had carried him out of the way and found a new container to transport the thankfully undamaged goods inside. When they asked him what had happened, he lied and confirmed their story that he had simply lost consciousness, leaving out any mention of the statuette and doing his best to ignore the lingering sense of foreboding that had settled over him since he had woken up. At the time, he simply brushed it off as a reasonable fear that his little accident might upset his superiors, but as he shook away his weariness and got back to work, the searching looks that some of the others had started to give him did not escape his attention. Eager to be rid of the unwanted scrutiny, he retired alone to a hotel room late in the evening, after another team had arrived a few hours behind schedule to take the goods off his own peoples' hands. As he prepared to sleep after such a long and tiring day, his thoughts kept returning to the statuette, trying in vain to make sense of what had happened to him. Something felt indescribably wrong, and he received his first taste of what that very same night, when he found a man sitting silently at his kitchen table as he was turning off the lights. He'd heard no-one enter the room, nor did the intruder seem to have so much as acknowledged his company; it merely sat in place, its back to Allen, completely deaf to his voice as he called out to it in annoyance. When he reached out to take his unwanted guest by the shoulder, his hand passed straight through it, and he had a mere fraction of a second to glimpse its face - there was nothing there but an endlessly dark hole, its edges torn and ragged like an old linen sheet. He screamed in alarm and drew back immediately, but the figure was simply gone, its seat as empty as it had always been, and he was left alone in the room with nothing but the growing feeling that something - something *else* - was alert and watching him. He did not sleep for the rest of the night, and spent it instead on his couch with the lights on and a gun within reach, merely waiting for the sun to rise. The morning after treated Allen no better than the night before, as he found to his dismay that he had begun to hallucinate visions of ghosts and inhuman creatures no matter where he went, many of which seemed to take an active interest in him as he passed them by. His coworkers had chosen to celebrate their success prematurely while they waited for their pay to come in, and at the insistence of their on-the-ground leader, he was dragged along on a tour of the city's pubs in spite of his clearly tired and troubled state of mind, to witness them making merry while he struggled to hide the cause of his distress behind a nervous smile and his usual skittish behaviour. Allen feared that they would simply call him insane if he spoke a word about what he was experiencing, but even more than that, he feared that his boss had insisted on involving him not out of a sense of camaraderie or concern, but to keep him under watch for any signs of irregular activity. Whatever he had touched wasn't meant for him to find, and it made all too much sense that the one overseeing the goods knew enough to suspect that something could have gone amiss. He couldn't trust that it would be in his own best interests if that suspicion were confirmed. Allen spent the next few days in a state of quiet desperation, searching in secret for whatever information he could find about the cause of his own apparent psychosis. He changed locations frequently, often just to avoid his hallucinations rather than any physical person, and continued to keep up appearances as best he could whenever his boss would check in by phone. As time carried on and his capacity for skepticism wore thinner and thinner, he turned to less scientific explanations for his condition - witchcraft, curses, possession and the like. Though it was nothing he wanted to believe in at the time, he felt that he had lost the luxury of choosing just what his beliefs could be in the face of what his reality had become, and so he placed his trust in the remedies of those who had more experience with keeping faith than he himself ever had. He recited prayers nightly, applied holy water to his brow, and even gave elaborate warding rituals an earnest effort, all to no avail. The presence that he could feel watching him showed no signs of diminishing, and so with no other options remaining to him, he was at last forced to seek out help in person. By cashing in on a few favours among his contacts, Allen managed to set up a private meeting between himself and a local, freelancing Catholic priest - someone as discreet, and unfortunately as scrupulous, as the criminals he had grown accustomed to working with. Once he had explained his situation, he was confidently assured that he was most definitely afflicted by a form of possession, and were he interested and willing to cover certain costs, it would indeed be possible to arrange a swift exorcism outside of official channels for a situation in such immediate need of attention as his own. Wary of being cheated but lacking any safe alternatives, he accepted the offer without complaint, and was given a place and date to meet with the priest and a few assistants so they could take his money, ply their trade, and never speak of the event again. He made sure to bring nothing with him beyond the payment he had promised, but the priest seemed to be good on his word, and Allen was promptly ushered into a dark room where he was laid onto a bed, restrained for good measure, and put under a deep trance. He lost consciousness to the sound of the priest's droning prayers, wishing with all his might that he could be cured so easily by the mere words of a holy man. When Allen awoke, the presence that was with him felt stronger than ever, and the priest and his assistants lay pale and unmoving on the floor, bleeding freely from their eyes and noses. He panicked, and struggled against his bonds until he was at last able to slip free and stumble his way out of the house as quickly as his legs could carry him. There was no escaping whatever had taken hold of him - it had made that much soberingly clear - but Allen had other things to flee from, now; the local authorities and his own employers chief among them. He gathered what few necessities he had to travel with and left France by plane that very same day, telling no-one of his departure and leaving his phone broken and discarded in a nameless alleyway so that it couldn't be used to find him. He had no destination in mind, his only goals being to hide from those who would come searching for him and to discover a cure to his affliction before it ultimately drove him insane. More than a year passed for Allen without a hint of success as he moved from one country to the next. His inexperience with matters of the occult coupled with the precautions he took in order to avoid the attention of his assumed pursuers made progress slow and uncertain, yet the steady worsening of his condition kept the matter constantly at the forefront of his mind. The spirits he could see had only been the beginning of it - as time went on and his life spiraled ever further out of his control, subtler manifestations of his "curse" began to surface, and even a force as nebulous as luck itself seemed to have purposefully turned itself against him. He had all but given up hope when, against all odds, a promising solution to his problems found him entirely of its own accord, in the form of an unusual woman named Livia who happened to notice one day that he could see the spirits too, just like she could. Unlike Allen, Livia was no victim of the supernatural. A werewolf from birth hailing from a proud line of Lycaon mages, she was accustomed to living not in one world, but three - the mundane world of humans where she worked, the secret world of her kin where she had been raised, and owing to her gifts as a medium, the inscrutable world of the spirits, from where she drew her power. To her senses, Allen stood out like a beacon - someone who seemed very much like her, yet looked so completely lost amongst his own surroundings that his confusion alone managed to stoke her curiosity. Unable to simply overlook him, she approached Allen under a friendly if somewhat manipulative guise, hoping to learn something small about him without giving up anything of substance about herself. She was not, however, prepared for just how paranoid, nor how clueless, he truly was. Allen rebuffed Livia's advances immediately, taking her interest in him as a sign of danger more than anything else. When she refused to leave and instead began to hint more overtly about the actual reason that she wished to speak with him, he took her for someone who was either completely insane or looking to pull some manner of prank at his expense. It was only after he was confronted with proof that she was a medium that he began to consider what she was saying, after which even the simplest details - things that by any reckoning, she expected him to have known about well before meeting her - caused him to react with a mixture of horror and confusion normally reserved for a simple human who had scarcely even heard of the occult before. He was unaware, and could not be convinced, of the fact that he was a werewolf himself, despite possessing the unmistakable scent of one, and was quite certain that he had never met such a thing at any point in his past, let alone transformed into one personally. The very thought that something so absurd could actually exist, while difficult for him to outright deny, was harder still for him to accept even in spite of the strange company he found himself keeping. Seeming to take pity on him, but in truth motivated largely by the thrill of a new mystery to unravel and concerns that she might need to kill Allen if he couldn't be trusted to keep what she had shared a secret, Livia invited him to follow her somewhere more private; a place where she could prove her claims without worrying about who else might be watching. Unsurprisingly, he was hesitant - he didn't trust her, and he had ample reason to be afraid of what she might do without the presence of witnesses to keep her civil. In the end, though, it was impossible for him to deny that she was also the closest he had ever come to learning something concrete about his condition, and that was reason enough for him to take the risk. He agreed without needing to be convinced further, too tired and miserable to put up a strong resistance to what could be his first true ray of hope, or just as likely the last desperate mistake of his life, and allowed her to lead him where she wished. Livia took Allen to what could only be described as her laboratory - a place of seclusion where she and her "family" practiced and developed their rituals alongside other acts of magic and alchemy. She sat him down away from her work and had him recount his story in full to her, interrupting it to ask the occasional question, though by the time he reached the present day it was clear that it had only fed her curiosity further. To her own displeasure, much of what she was able to tell Allen was mere speculation, and the only thing she could say with certainty was what he was not - or at least, not quite. He was not quite possessed, for though he seemed to have become the host of a spirit, it had somehow lingered in his body uncontested for over a year without making its motives known, and had neither grown weaker nor made any effort to take control of him in that time. He was not quite cursed, for Livia could find no evidence of magic having been performed upon him, not even of the subtler varieties her kin kept secret amongst themselves. She was even in doubt as to whether he was truly a shapeshifter, for while many things about him strongly suggested as much, the thought of a juvenile were-creature having never undergone a transformation after so long was simply unprecedented. The one thing she could say with confidence was that the statue he had come into contact with had been an artifact - but it was gone, shipped away to an unknown location with no hope of retrieval, and she could not study it any more than she could step into the past and witness the moment of its discovery in person. Lacking such an ability, she was left with Allen alone as the only clue as to what its purpose might have been, and so she invited him to stay for a time and learn a few things about himself, counting upon the offer to keep him cooperative while she and her clanmates devised ways to test and explore his affliction in greater detail. She was not wrong. Allen understood that he was at the clan's mercy, and he took their hospitality in spite of this fact as a show of good will. Whatever potential they saw in him was enough that they wanted him on their side rather than chained up like a prisoner in their home, which made it both foolish and dangerous to reject an offer that seemed to serve both of their interests so well. As such, he agreed to become a guest of the Lycaon, allowing them to hide him from his enemies and study his nature in secret, while he in turn enjoyed a share of their findings and the opportunity to ask questions about the world he had thought he knew. They showed him magic, and even taught him a small amount to see if anything might be learned by observing his attempts to control it. He was given books to read about the spirits he had seen, on their habits and vulnerabilities, and even their favored uses as the catalysts for certain kinds of magecraft. Once, and only once, the clan unexpectedly succeeded in forcing Allen's own spirit out of his body by triggering the rage of his Other - an event he did not remember the aftermath of, but which inspired a reluctance in his benefactors that he had not previously seen. They were more cautious in their attempts to communicate with his unwanted passenger after the fact, and their descriptions of it - of him - were concerning to say the least. Several months passed with Allen living as the clan's guest, and though he found nothing so convenient as a solution to his problems, they did become stable, at least - manageable on some shallow level. He remained a curiosity to his hosts, more tolerated than welcomed, but eventually he began to discover the limit of how much they were willing to share with an outsider, just as they, themselves, were nearing the limit of what their small, remote branch of the clan could realistically learn from him. They became increasingly secretive about the nature of their findings, and their efforts ground to a halt without the necessary expertise to investigate further, leaving Allen to wait in ignorance for an answer he had little hope of receiving. When he pressed Livia on the matter, she was defensive at first, but ultimately conceded that there was simply not much more her people could do for him. What they knew and what they suspected hinted at things he was not permitted to know, and without a wealth of resources and a truly skilled authority on the subject, both of which they lacked, attempting to make any further progress would be both futile and quite dangerous. Put bluntly, they were indefinitely stuck until they could receive help from abroad. It came as no surprise that this news did not sit well with Allen, which is why she interrupted his protests before they could start to instead recommend a solution that would satisfy both problems at once. She had someone in mind who she believed could help him, or at the very least direct him to someone who could, but the man was an Elder of her clan; neither free enough to travel so far away, nor particularly interested in doing so to meet outsiders at their request. If Allen were willing to demonstrate his loyalty, however, this same Elder had the power to approve his induction into the clan, explain everything they had kept him in ignorance of, and in all likelihood, offer him all the help he needed to solve his problem in a way he could be happy with. The Lycaon would, she added, be quite pleased to have him, and she did not anticipate more than a token resistance to the idea, particularly since she would send him away with her personal recommendation if he truly did have any interest in continuing to work with her people. She hid her feelings well, but there was a hint of melancholy in the offer. To Livia, it was an admission of defeat; proof that she wasn't talented enough to handle the matter on her own using the resources at hand. It also meant that the two of them wouldn't be likely to see one-another again, possibly ever, and while they were not close friends, she would have been lying to have said that she hadn't enjoyed the company of another medium like herself. In spite of his usual demeanor, what little he could read into her actions made Allen feel somewhat guilty; he had feared and mistrusted the woman for so long, and still she had dealt with him fairly, keeping his interests in mind well beyond what he had dared to expect from her. In the end, he did still take advantage of her final offer, and he gave her a quiet apology on his way out - but not before asking her in sincere confusion why she had gone to such great lengths to help him. The cryptic answer that he received haunted him all the way to Chambury: it was because he was going to need all the help he could get. Random Facts * Allen's body is marked by extensive ritual scarring, as though the markings which appear on his spirit form have been carefully branded onto his skin, though he has no recollection of how or when this happened. In order to not draw attention towards himself, he's learned to use magic to hide this aspect of his appearance and as such, the scars are rarely visible while he's conscious. * His accent is very mild and difficult to place, owing to his many years of travel and multiple false identities. * He's very skilled at doing impressions and has a good sense for the theatrical, though he has lost much of the drive he once had to be a performer along with his confidence under the spotlight. These days, the thought of having an entire room's attention focused on him at once is too uncomfortable for him to consider. * He tends to subconsciously scratch at his neck and the back of his head when he's feeling nervous. For him, this is a near-constant occurrence and his skin often appears irritated from the effort. * He hates leaving things to chance and is quick to blame any ill fortune he suffers upon supernatural forces. His old gambling habits are something he'd rather forget. * Ever since becoming a shapeshifter, he has suffered from a severe and irrational aversion to running water. Streams and rivers petrify him and he will not approach them willingly under any circumstances, and even heavy rainfall is enough to cause him visible discomfort. He'll always step around rather than over puddles and finds the presence even of large, unmoving bodies of water such as lakes to be distracting. He only bathes, never showers, and his home tends to be overstocked with juice and alcohol as he hates using the tap, though he'd never admit this is the reason. (For mechanical purposes, Allen suffers -1 Fragments to any action attempted in the vicinity of a substantial body of running water or while under heavy rainfall, and may only act once every other round in the case of the former. Around large but still bodies of water, he only suffers -1 Fragments to rolls related to his ability to concentrate or process information) * Likewise, since becoming a shapeshifter, food has largely lost its taste to him and eating feels like a chore that does little to satisfy his hunger. He also suffers from a diminished emotional range and frequent nightmares, all of which he blames upon his "curse", citing memories from a time when he was an ordinary human and, in his eyes, more of a "person" mentally than he is now. He fears the possibility that he will someday become a completely unempathetic monster devoid of all humanity and any recollection of his past life. * He's something of a magnet for malicious spirits, which as a medium, he can see plain as day. This has only made his paranoia worse, as his feelings of being constantly watched and followed are often all too easily confirmed. * Allen's Other is not derived from his own personality or experiences. It is a highly intelligent spiritual entity with its own inscrutable goals, motives, and memories separate from his own. In all other ways, however, it functions as expected, being confined to his consciousness, capable of sharing his experiences, Eclipsing him, etc. * Allen's Other does not understand any languages in spite of its intelligence. It is eerie and unempathetic in the way it behaves, and lacks an interest in humans and other were-creatures unless they present themselves as obstacles to it. In the rare cases where it cares to communicate with Allen, it does so by forcing him to experience memories and perspectives rather than articulated thoughts, essentially attempting to pass its understanding of an idea to him in the most direct manner possible. * Allen's Other acts as the source of his magic, and often uses its power to influence the outcomes of events surrounding him (as per Person of Interest). However, its goal seems to be largely to torment rather than aid him, and as such, it is far more likely to intervene to his detriment rather than to his benefit, preferably by inviting injury or even death upon him or others when possible. The most common exception to this is that it will act in his defense if his own life is visibly threatened, though whether this is more to protect him or itself is unknown. * Allen's Other lacks the instincts of a corporeal being. It feels but does not react to pain or hunger, and its movements in a physical body tend to be stiff, purposeful, and self-conscious as it is unaccustomed to experiencing kinesthesia. As its behaviour is so unnatural, it can often be very difficult to tell whether Allen has been possessed by a foreign entity or simply Eclipsed by his Other. * Allen is affected by lunar phases much like a typical werewolf, feeling "closer" to his Other as the moon grows fuller and so on, but he does not shift forms involuntarily during a full moon. However, the relative ease of shifting during this time may cause him to do so without entirely meaning to, and in his Spirit form, it is more difficult than usual for him to return to his corporeal body should this happen. * Allen is not vulnerable to silver. His physical body is nearly but not completely human in its capabilities and weaknesses. Abilities Source: Blood Pact Human: Savvy (Rank 1) Arms (Rank 1) (Small firearms, ie: handguns) Were: Redirection (Rank 1) Regeneration (Rank 1) Trade-Off (Rank 1) (+Agility, -Endurance) Mystic: Spellcasting (Rank 1) Medium (Rank 1) Person of Interest (Rank 2) Living Battery (Rank 1) Poltergeist (Rank 1) Shadow Weaving (Rank 3) Spirit Fangs (Rank 1) Clan Abilities: Lycaon's Secrets (Rank 1) Astral Walker (Rank 3) Hidden Art (Rank 2) Pack/Order Abilities (if applicable): Elder Abilities (if applicable): Descriptions For Alternate Forms Form: Spirit Eye color: Bright red, glowing. Black sclera with no distinguishable irises, pupils, etc. Height: 16'1"" Build: Thin but massive. Body is hunched over and bestial, more than halfway to being a full-time quadruped. Possesses extremely long claws on both his hands and feet. Fur/scale color/pattern: Pitch black. "Fur" tends to roll off the body like smoke or trailing ink. When performing magic or under certain unique conditions, elaborate red ritual markings can be seen covering the body. Abilities: Astral Walker (Rank 3) Poltergeist (Rank 1) Character Use You're welcome to mention Allen in passing or have him be involved as the background element of a plot, but please contact me for permission before placing him in any new relationships (professional or otherwise), killing him, maiming him, or so on. I'll gladly answer questions and provide information about him on request. Rumours * He can get his hands on anything, for the right price. Even his superiors don't know how or where from. * Simply being around him is bad luck. Supernaturally inclined people may call him cursed. * He's running away from someone - or something - even more dangerous than the clans he associates with. They can't protect him forever and he knows it. * He'll eat literally anything with a straight face. Someone allegedly saw him drink hot sauce directly from the bottle. 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